I believe some perspective might be in order, so that the significance of this next item may be fully appreciated in its broader context. Harry Reid it seems went to his fellow minions in the Senate, and as their minion leader, found that little more than half of his sub minion drones were on board with the latest bit of class warfare du jour.
I am referencing of course the proposed federal minimum wage hike to $10.10 per hour, euphemistically referred to as, “giving America a raise.” For purposes of perspective, let’s discuss what these little bits of class warfare truly are, and especially the minimum wage hike. They are the go to plays within the Democrat play book that are pulled out whenever electoral trouble is spotted on the horizon. The minimum wage hike is the Democrat equivalent to the Steelers running their bubble screen each and every time they face a second and long and are down by a touchdown or more. They are the equivalent of Peyton Manning coming to the line of scrimmage and declaring authoritatively, “Comanche,” every single time his offense faces a third and long. The minimum wage hike is the go to play, and before now, it has worked every single time, (in terms of electoral politics anyhow. Economically, it has always resulted in disaster.)
From the Hotair article linked to above:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday delayed action on legislation raising the minimum wage, the centerpiece of the Democrats’ 2014 agenda.
The Nevada Democrat made the surprising move amid escalating Democratic resistance in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office report released last week estimating that hiking the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could cost the equivalent of 500,000 jobs by late 2016.
Reid has not yet unified his caucus on the issue, which is a constant in the Democrats’ election-year playbook. Of the 55 senators who caucus with the Democrats, only 32 have signed on as official co-sponsors of Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) bill.
Let’s get this straight. This is Obama’s highest domestic agenda priority item, and the chamber which his party controls can barely get half of their caucus to sign onto it? That’s some genius work at the White House. Who’s their legislative liaison these days?The issue, of course, is that the CBO actually scored the proposal before Reid could advance the bill. Their estimate of 500,000 jobs lost in just two years would be a boat anchor on any legislation, but especially in an economy where workforce participation looks like this:
The Democrats who still have jobs in Washington, and are not tenured enough in their careers as professional wielders of power are worried. They have internal polls, and those internal polls are telling them to forget about 2016, but worry instead about 2014. They can read the tea leaves and those tea leaves are telling them that America is not in a mood to elect Democrats to the office of county dog catcher. This is the reason why we are seeing a huge increase in the retirements from the demographic of Democrat Congressional Leaders. These fine folks are not interested in being in Congress and not being afforded the opportunity to wield power to the degree that they feel entitled.
What we’ve just witnessed, to continue the pro football analogy, is the first snap from scrimmage during a playoff game sailing over the head of the quarterback, while the whole stadium anticipated and feared the bubble screen. The Democrats tried to label Obamacare bi-partisan, and that will never work. Then they tried to laud it as a giant success, that won’t work either. Next they tried the whole populist play book, and received a bizarrely luke warm reception from a nation fatigued with previous consequences from earlier forays into populism. After that, the calls to fix rather than scrap Obamacare were sounded to various focus groups. The response of course was this:
“You can’t fix this car Spicoli!”
The tried and true minimum wage hike was supposed to be their go to play. The good news is that as of now, they can’t even sell it to their own. Demonizing political opponents is all they have left now. Expect to see that soon. It may work, and it may not, but one thing is clear, reports of the death of the GOP may have been premature, once again.
